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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426250">till human voices wake us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyMeAway/pseuds/FlyMeAway'>FlyMeAway</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreckAndRule/pseuds/WreckAndRule'>WreckAndRule</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cats, Gen, M/M, Mild Gore, Post-Skyfall, not really smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:15:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyMeAway/pseuds/FlyMeAway, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreckAndRule/pseuds/WreckAndRule</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Determination and devotion to the cause will not do now, once you're overly aware of your own heartbeat.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Bond/Q</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>till human voices wake us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            A translation of

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/953087">כשקול אנוש יעיר אותנו</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyMeAway/pseuds/FlyMeAway">FlyMeAway</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this back at 2013, so no Spectre spoilers whatsoever. Now, we have our own little English version, brought to you by my lovely husband.</p><p>Title from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>7.</p><p>All that remains are Bond's compressed breaths pounding in his ears, a background noise to Q's thoughts as they advance towards a solution. All that remains is a blurry image of the most successful Double-0 agent in the history of British secret service, lying prone on the floor, the blood on his chest staining the torn, white V-neck. All that remains is that echo, the memory of a cruel laugh, the promise: <em>die, and take everyone with you.</em></p><p>It seems to Q that if he strains his ears, he could hear a beep, and if he sharpens his hearing, he could also hear beating. His shaking fingers stop moving over the keyboard, and he gulps before he makes a brave move to break the silence:</p><p>"I can fix this."</p><p>No response.</p><p>"007." His voice does not crack, but it's close. "I can fix this."</p><p>Behind his back, everyone else at MI6 has abandoned what they're doing, and now, he knows without even looking, they're staring at the large screen in front of him. Bond's injuries, even the most severe, have gotten a crowd more than once in the past (no wonder when the man claims his greatest skill is resurrection), and him showing weakness is far from rare, but this time it's different: the death planned for him is far more crucial than ever before, and it's also, Q imagines, far more personal.</p><p>(He wants to turn the screen off, keep the earpiece and remain Bond's only connection to HQ, the only one who can tell what is happening. Sadly, there are protocols for this kind of thing. He and Bond may have broken a fair number of those during their work together these past few years – and gotten scolded a fair number times by M, though they got several commendations as well – but this desire is nothing more than a whim, a stupid urge to protect the privacy of his field agent.)</p><p>A few horrifying seconds later, Bond speaks:</p><p>"I can't go back to headquarters."</p><p>Which Q hears as <em>I can't let him win.</em></p><p>He makes a quick decision, formulating a plan; calculating the risks until he realizes they're ludicrously great, and deciding the hell with it all, "I'll text you the address."</p><p>On the screens, Bond's head is slouched towards his torso, but even the untrained eye can catch a slight twitch. Q is the only one to hear him laugh.</p><p>"That'll take time."</p><p>Something catches in his chest, a feeling like an electric shock. "No, it won't," he decrees sharply.</p><p>"Q – "</p><p>"No. It. Won't."</p><p>A low moan of pain. "I'll see you in an hour."</p><p>"Try not to get run over."</p><p> </p><p>6.</p><p>He was captured in Poland, drugged and torture for what he assumes is a week, before finally blacking out. It was a slow process, with parts of his consciousness stripped from him like autumn leaves. He woke up on the floor of an abandoned, ramshackle room somewhere in England, his neck pulsing with pain and his left-side limbs without feeling. His first clear thought was, <em>huh, that wasn't as bad as I was expecting.</em> <em>Less dead.</em> The small chip installed behind his earlobe hummed, trying to find a frequency, and when the sound finally turned to ticking, he breathed a sigh of relief.</p><p>(<em>I'm in!</em> he heard, <em>Bond, can you hear me?</em> His quartermaster's voice was rather cheerful to the ears of a man who had just regained consciousness, and maybe that would have made him smile, but for the fact that moving his face muscles would require sublime effort. <em>I've located you and I'm connecting to the security cameras; I'm en route so don't you dare die on me.)</em></p><p>"What's always astounded me about you," Bond raised his head in freight; He'd figured he wouldn't be alone for long, but his senses had forsaken him and he didn't notice the other man until before the latter had spoken up. "is the frivolity with which you treat your own life. People tend to be more apprehensive about that sort of thing."</p><p>James recognizes his target, a famous terrorist he was supposed to have taken out. An electronics genius and an explosive mastermind responsible for the deaths of many good people. He balls up his fists, feeling incapacitated without his gun.</p><p>"I imagine how easy it is to think of yourself that way when your whole existence is the property of queen and country. And yet, you understand, it still bothers me."</p><p>(<em> – I know you're alive because the chip should tell me when you stop breathing. It can't have stopped working because my stuff never stops working. Could you do me the favour of responding? Hum God Save the Queen for all I care.</em></p><p>
  <em>I have a clear image.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bond – )</em>
</p><p>"Killing you won't teach you a lesson."</p><p>The sub-atomic bomb is connected to the major artery in the root of his neck. Once James' heart stops, the switch releases. Every person in a 200 metre radius takes the brunt of it, with another five kilometres suffering the blowback. <em>Die, and take everyone with you.</em></p><p>He turns his head to the right and vomits on the floor.</p><p>With the way Q's breathing changes, he's also gotten that.</p><p>"I'd like to see you try and catch me now."</p><p> </p><p>5.</p><p>Basically, this means Bond can't finish the mission.</p><p>Basically, this means you can go shoot yourself in the middle of the ocean or try and not get killed.</p><p>Basically, this means you can go shoot yourself in the middle of the ocean.</p><p>Which is both horrifically brilliant: One of the reasons Bond is such a legend is that he indeed treats his own life with no great importance, not belittling it so much as thinking of it as a secondary consideration. It's a trait all MI6 field agents share to some degree, though Bond has somehow broken the record. Q thinks something very basic was taken from him then: Not the ability to do the mission so much as the capability of underestimating its consequences.</p><p>And it's true that any move you make can go wrong (Q experienced that himself when he helped Silva connect to the HQ mainframe and nearly brought down the whole organization). And it's true that you can always die in the process and lose the people most dear to you (there were always whispers about Vesper around HQ, and it's not a great challenge to uncover the story of her demise when you make your money from cyber espionage), and it's true you may cause more harm than good.</p><p>But the rules of the game have changed.</p><p>Determination and devotion to the cause will not do now, once you're overly aware of your own heartbeat.</p><p>Basically, it means Q has to fix this.</p><p> </p><p>4.</p><p>When he gets to the designated address, Q opens the door with a porcelain glass in his hand, wild hair and reddened eyes hidden behind the reflective lenses of his glasses. He's wearing a black sweater over an ironed white button-down, and a tie (because of course there's a tie), and James' mind immediately classifies him as familiar territory. Not dangerous. Brilliant. "You're late," he says, and then – "Tea?" and that's incredibly familiar as well.</p><p>It's a private flat, mostly dark except for a gush of blue light from what seem to be twenty-three different screens spread out over the small space. Apart from those, the living room has a sofa and an armchair, with non-matching upholstery, and a low coffee table which is the resting spot (or the slowly dying spot, as far as movement goes) of a grey ball of fur which may have identified as a cat in a previous life. There's also a corner desk, which is overfilled with what James would call a cemetery of electronic gadgets and tea, for lack of a better term: tossed electrical panels, cables and wires, pieces of metal in different shapes, and a double-digit number of empty or half-empty cups of tea, grouped into nearly-collapsing stacks.</p><p>Which is appropriate.</p><p>"Lovely place," James mumbles under his breath, and leans against the wall as he holds his innards in with his right hand – which he refuses to call collapsing, even if that would be a totally legitimate thing to do after having been beaten and drugged into losing consciousness and been turned into a walking bomb. Q's eyes go wide with fright when that happens, and he quickly puts his teacup down on the desk behind him (another one. No wonder they stack) so his hands are free to support James' shoulder. "Not exactly what I had in mind."</p><p>His innards are busy slumping into the pit of his stomach like a torrent of rain hitting the central London asphalt, and he coughs loudly. He's been through worse physically, but the thought of endangering human lives by simply being around makes it all dizzying and fuzzy.</p><p>Now, he's mainly trying to bring his sight and his breathing into focus. He uses Q's nose as a focal point, then his eyes and lips. The urge to close his eyes lessens with interesting things to look at.</p><p>"What did you imagine?" Q says as he scans his face, checking to see if he's joking or not, or whether he's about to die. Both options are equally disturbing.</p><p>"You, in your pyjamas."</p><p>"Aren't you too wired to a sub-atomic bomb to flirt?"</p><p>James straightens up. "No such thing."</p><p>Q's fingers are still digging into the flesh of his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>3.</p><p>Though not longer than three inches in diameter, the device is rough and ugly against Bond's tanned skin, and when Q touches it, it thrums weakly under his fingers as if it has life of its own. After that, a rough feeling stays with him, of clotted blood in the palm of his hand.</p><p>Until this very moment, he suddenly realizes, he did not think of James Bond as a human being. Not exactly a machine (he was versed in those, understanding them better than he understood people), but not really flesh and blood as well (though he'd seen him bleed more than once). In his mind, he was always… invincible. unobtainable. No one could touch him.</p><p>(Q is touching him now, Bond's blood on his fingers, being smeared on the skin like warpaint.)</p><p>And it's not the fact that Bond's sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of his flat, his limbs loose and his body spent. It's also not the fact that he's smiling at Q a little differently from his "business as usual" smirk, looking at him in a way he would not have except for this turn of events. It's also not the fact that he's wired to an explosive.</p><p>It's the fact that his heart might stop beating.</p><p>It seems like they both need to get used to the idea.</p><p> </p><p>2.</p><p>He's sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the flat, no shoes or shirt, and the first place his mind goes to is an <em>interrogation</em>. Q's pacing back and forth, making several laps around the place, mumbling things James might have understood (but most likely not) if he had made the effort to listen, typing for a few seconds on every keyboard that happens to be in his path, and messing around with some objects that make a metallic sound when they're knocked together. The second place his mind goes is an <em>operating room</em>.</p><p>Finally, his quartermaster stands before him, wearing white gloves that smell like talcum and hide the pinkish hue James' blood gave the pads of his fingers and the palm of his hand. There's a screwdriver between his teeth and what seems like a golden pair of tweezers between two fingers. James hopes those aren't really tweezers, because if Q really intends to save them – and everything in a five kilometre radius – with a pair of tweezers, he's going to save him the humiliation and just shoot himself between the eyes.</p><p>"Don't move," Q commands, the syllables distorted around the screwdriver in his mouth. He's leaning over James' shoulder as if this closeness is trivial to him, as if it's something they do all the time. James feels it before he hears the <em>click</em> that tells him Q's begun to work, biting his lips and shutting his eyes. After a few moments of some unidentified fiddling and throwing away bits of black metal to the floor, Q groans in frustration. He rises, shoots James a quick glance and leaves him to his lonesome.</p><p>When he comes back, it's with another wooden chair which he drags behind James', and he sits close enough to cradle the agent's head with the side of his neck (the tip of the other man's glasses knocks on James' temple, and his impossible hair tickles his ear. It's a distraction from the pain).</p><p>Easier access.</p><p>No more than a few seconds pass, and he growls, heaving himself up again. He furrows his brow, trying a few different positions. None of them leave him satisfied. He exhales sharply. It makes him think of an artist searching for his muse.</p><p>"Okay," Q finally says, putting his hands together, "I can't disconnect the bomb this way."</p><p>"Which means?"</p><p>"Which means the wires are deeper inside than I thought."</p><p>"Which means?"</p><p>"Which means," Q swallows, "we're going to have to dig a little deeper." He stops, picking up from the table an item which looks far from surgical – the kind of pocketknife interns get for their first few missions. "It's got sensors, don't worry"</p><p>James does. "Q, do you have any surgical experience?"</p><p>"I can make sushi," he smiles.</p><p>"Lovely."</p><p>It's not like there's a better alternative – if anyone can crack this, if anyone exists who James unquestionably trusts, it's the young man standing before him. That kind of blind faith is the most basic mistake in the book, and James is slightly surprised it's there.</p><p><em>I could have run away and shot myself somewhere in the middle of the ocean</em>, he thinks. <em>I'm endangering so many people based on pure instinct,</em> he thinks. <em>I'm endangering him.</em></p><p>Q has his best "I know what I'm doing" face on, but there's a problem: James knows him. And James can read fear like he can aim while jumping from a moving car. Another problem: It's not just fear. There's another emotion floating into his bright gaze, something deeper that he can't put his finger on. James can't tell why that missing piece of the puzzle instills some confidence in him.</p><p>"Sit on the armchair," Q says. It sounds like a decision. "Don't move."</p><p>It's softer than he expected, but he doesn't get to settle in it properly before Q approaches him, arranges his gear and puts a small laptop on the table next to him (the cat's gone to some unknown spot, James wasn't following), and without warning, climbs in James' lap, surrounding him in every direction.</p><p>James raises an eyebrow but doesn’t move. "Q."</p><p>"007."</p><p>"What are you doing?"</p><p>"Saving your life." He hums with satisfaction and wraps nearly perfectly around James' body. They fit together – it's the right position. "Bond?"</p><p>"Mmm?" he barely blurts out, tilting his head to the side for easier access. He wants to say, <em>take your time</em>. To whisper, <em>stay here as long as you can</em>. To mumble, <em>delay the inevitable</em>.</p><p>His quartermaster's gaze is still locked on the bend of his neck, and Q bites his lips before opening them, "You said your favorite hobby was resurrection."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Can you bring us both back? You know, in case something goes wrong?" Q asks, before the blade pierces the flesh. James wants to sink his teeth into something, and the most tempting thing before his eyes is Q's collarbone.</p><p>"I thought you said you could fix this."</p><p>"Just in case."</p><p>While Q works (with fine, precise movement. As if James is another technological gadget to be perfected), James tries not to think about orange and yellow and red, about explosions in slow motions – about all of the things in the room rising into the air and combusting, about the shockwave and the terrible blowback blurring everything and the great darkness in which it all culminates.</p><p>He focuses on the pain currently washing all the way from his pulse to his chest to his insides, surrounding him just like Q's body. He focuses on the way Q feels almost comfortingly heavy with his legs on either side of James' thighs, on the desire to touch him as well, to put his hands on the pale skin of his collarbone, his neck, his lips, his heart. He focuses on the urge to hold him in place, so that in the event they are going to shatter into pieces, all that's left of them is mingled to the point of inseparability.</p><p> </p><p>1.</p><p>They're awash with blood. It slithers out of the open wound alarmingly fast, which makes Q try and remember how long a heart can keep beating when it's denied the sufficient amount of lifeblood. It's everywhere: smeared on Bond's cheeks and stuck to Q's clothes, running down Bond's bare arms and staining Q's lips. They're flooded by time: the seconds drift away as is they were a physical object slipping through Q's fingers. He tries to measure them with background noise: weak breathing, the unsynchronized beating of two hearts, the mechanic whir of his work.</p><p>Apart from his focus on the mission at hand, there comes the thought that this whole thing is frighteningly intimate, almost dangerously so. Bond is a firm and solid presence against him, warm and stiff between his legs, and when Q does something that is probably extremely painful (He's got a bomb to defuse. Mercy is a secondary priority at the moment), he grabs Q's thigh with a strength that will surely leave bruises in a variety of colours should they live long enough for those to form. He seems to be built all sharp and rugged, steady where Q requires support, where everything around them fades.</p><p>One last wire that needs to be separated from an artery. One final action before they'll finally find out if they've beat back death.</p><p>Bond places his hand over Q's heart, and the gesture makes him wonder which of them has gotten under the other's skin. Maybe he's got it all wrong.</p><p>They look at each other.</p><p>Bond's eyes aren't ocean blue but rather azure like the sky, and the undeniable connotation for the sky is falling, but Q sticks with drowning. This feels like drowning.</p><p>"I won't leave you alone," he finally tells him, replicating something integral from within Q's chest.</p><p>Bond's heartbeats shake the room and Q counts down. Stopping when he gets to seven.</p><p>"Alright, then."</p><p> </p><p>0.</p><p>All that remains are Q's compressed breaths pounding at his ear, a measured gust of warm air against his neck.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>All I wanted by the end of Skyfall was Q to sit in shirtless Bond lap. So there you have it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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